Eye to Eye with North Suburban Vision Consultants

“Vodka EyeBalling” – a very dangerous behavior shown on youtube.com

26th May, 2010 - Posted by Dr. S. Barry Eiden - No Comments

Today I was asked, as the chair of the Contact Lens and Cornea Section of the American Optometric Association, to comment for AOL News about a disturbing behavior by some college students that was posted online on YouTube.com. It is called “Vodka EyeBalling”. Apparently intoxicated college students have been filmed dousing their eye with vodka directly from the bottle!

This behavior is very dangerous. First of all, vodka is typically 80 proof which means that it is about 40% alcohol. The alcohol is toxic to the surface cells of the cornea called epithelial cells. Within seconds of exposure these cells will be damaged and a surface defect in the cornea will result. This significantly increases the chance of secondary infection. Second, since the person typically is heavily intoxicated, they will not perceive the level of pain typical of such a chemical insult to the eye. As such, the time exposure of the alcohol to the eye will be extended. This increases the possibility of deeper corneal exposure to the alcohol which then could potentially result in corneal scar formation and permanent loss of vision. Finally, there could also be severe direct traumatic eye injury if the bottle hits the eye since it is placed so close to the eye. This is quite likely since the person is so intoxicated when they perform this vodka eyeballing.

Why would anyone do such a foolish thing? Does this increase the level of the “high” one gets with alcohol consumption? The answer is no. It seems like those who have done this apparently have done so on a dare.

It is very important that the dangers of this behavior are made known to all young people. The effect of Internet exposure and YouTube makes the thought of others copying this vodka eyeballing very concerning to say the least. I fear that not only will other college students try this, but that younger individuals of say high school age might also think about trying it.

There is only one thing to say about this:  “DON”T DO IT”

I also urge youtube to remove these videos and also to police their website to remove any videos that display other dangerous behaviors, especially those that might be attractive to young impressionable individuals.